Chart of the Day: Active ETFs Use Skyrockets

Written by Caroline Cakebread on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017 at 10:38 am

Once the sole domain of passive investors, exchange-traded funds are getting active – as of June 2017, there were 437 active ETFs listed with assets of US$57 billion. While active ETFs haven’t experienced the same level of inflows as their passive counterparts, they are gaining traction according to data from ETFGI, a London-based research and consultancy firm.

This chart shows that assets invested in active ETFs globally jumped by 30.% during the first six months of 2017.

All told, 65.5% of the gains were in U.S. products — and 72.9% of assets were in fixed income.

Why the big gain? Investors are responding to increased political risk in the form of the Trump administration, Brexit, and North Korea according to Deborah Fuhr, ETFGI’s managing partner.